


The Ice Is Getting Thinner

by SandandSeas



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:56:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandandSeas/pseuds/SandandSeas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's nine when she forces her brother to take her ice skating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Is Getting Thinner

She's nine when she forces her brother to take her ice skating, and Jack takes forever to get out the door.

 

“Emma, how do you tie shoes again?”

 

“JACK!”

 

When she looks back on that day, she likes to remember his smile first. Jack's smile was all teeth and gums and boyish charms. It would start with a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth, and then would slowly spread into a full-blown grin that would emphasize the dimples in his cheeks and the warm brown of his eyes. It was contagious. When Jack smiled, the world smiled.

 

That smile was what he was desperately trying to conceal, bent at the waist and untied shoelaces dangling in his hands. Mama, who was so use to their bickering and Jack's mischievous ways, didn't even spare a second to look away from her sewing. “Jack, tie your shoes and take you sister skating.”

 

Jack had winked at her, and had swiftly knotted his shoes and was already on the other side of the cabin, his skates bouncing against his shoulder blades. “Jeez Emma, lets go,times a wastin'.”

 

She recalls Mama telling them to be careful, but she was in such a hurry, so damn eager to get on the ice, that maybe she nearly tugged Jack's arm out of the socket in her haste.

 

Jack had taken it in stride like he always did, taking his time as they slide down the slope of the hill that swooped into the frozen pond.

 

They didn't know how thin the ice was, too busy to chase each other around the pond. The first crack wasn't loud and she wouldn't have noticed it at first if it hadn't been for the way Jack had frozen mid slide.

 

“Jack? Jack, what's wrong?” She had asked as she pressed her weight on her lead foot, making the ice creak louder beneath her blade.

 

“Emma! Stop!” Jack had snapped, voice pitched high and tight with something that took her years to identify.

 

_Fear._

 

But at the time, when she had never known her brother to be afraid, (how could she!? Jack was nothing but fun and good times! Things like fear and worry and all bad things were for grown ups!) the tone had sounded clipped and mean and as cold as the ground beneath her feet.

 

“Jack?” The ice creaked and groaned, spidery veins beginning to appear.

 

Jack had removed his own skates, had tossed them to the side carelessly. His eyes never leaving the ground as he inced closer to her, causing the ice under his own feet to begin to crack.

 

“Jack, I'm scared.” She had whimpered, and Jack, the stupid, beautiful soul, had fooled her, tricked her into forgetting her fear.

 

“Would I trick you?”

 

“Yes! You always play tricks!”

 

_Always had. Always would._

 

She remembers the feeling of twisted wood pressing into her side, propelling her off onto the thicker ice near land. The feeling of relief had hit her so hard that she had forgotten Jack. When she had glanced upwards, her smile had been bright, but his was brighter. She didn't understand why that was until she was older, another grown up thing; loving someone so much that their life was more precious than your own.

 

The sound of the ice finally giving way was as louder than thunder.

 

One moment, Jack was there, the next he was gone.

 

_Swallowed, consumed._

 

She spared a moment, a moment for her mind to work again, and then she screamed. Screamed so loud and for so long she wondered how she didn't faint for lack of air. A moment (eternity) passed and she was being cradled in her father's arms, she was being handed to her mother who had been paler than the snow around her. Somehow, she ended up in her bed, staring blankly at the door with long-dried tear marks sitting on her cheeks.

 

Night had already settled over her window when she heard her father's boots clunking outside her room. She had scrambled out of bed, had swung open the door, fully ready to meet her brother's smile.

 

She was met with her mother's cries.

 

“ _No! My boy, my poor boy!”_

 

She couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. Jack always came back.

 

She had pushed passed her grieving parents, had run down the hill and to the pond, only to find the ice already frozen over.

 

She was nine when she learned what death really meant.

 

The moon had never been quite as full as the night she fell asleep on the ice.

 

She vaguely remembers dreaming of golden sand, of eggs painted blue and green and pink. A women with fluttering wings and a bearded toymaker. She vaguely remembers dreaming of a white haired boy whose grin started at the corner of his mouth.

-

 

12/19/12

 

 

 


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